I have to say this.

I have been looking for help here on and off with my project and I have to state that this forum makes me sick. The board is ruined for people truly looking for help by either new game developers who do not know how much work it takes to complete what they are proposing or snobs, who are probably bitter about their own game development failures, and would rather trample a new game developer''s dreams than help out. I hold no illusions that I, as a unknown poster with no major games (yet) to my name can affect the posting habits on this board but, for my own piece of mind, I am going to offer my advice to both groups of posters. *** If you are a new game developer you must start simple. I am not saying you should start with Tetris, Pac-Man or whatever GameDev.net suggests today. The excitement you feel thinking about creating the next Everquest will dissapear when you start doing the substantial amount of work required for a simple game and realize that you''re going to end up with nothing more than Tetris. You shouldn''t have to lose that excitement. What I do recommend is that you take whatever game idea you have and break it down into parts until you can take the base components and make a "game" out of it. For example, if you want to make a fantasy MMORPG, I would suggest starting with something like creating a single section of land where a player and a computer opponent (no network code at this point) using the same built-in weapon walk around killing money-yielding monsters (I''d keep it to one type of monster) in an attempt to collect the most money. That is not a trivial amount of work (you may want to break it down even more - maybe implement two stores with varying prices and have the player buy low in one and sell high in the other) but it''s not overly ambitious either. Treat it like a full game : - Write a design document, compose some music and generate some sound effects, create the graphics, write the code and a manual etc... If you can do that it will give you an idea for the amount of work the development process is, make you feel as if you''re progressing towards your ultimate goal AND give you something to show people when you present your idea to this forum (or one like it) looking for help. If that is too much for you then find out what area gave you the trouble, get stronger in that area, and try again (and please, if you can''t create good graphics or music for this first step don''t worry about it, they need to be functional - once you have something to show people with far more artistic talent than you can help ). *** If you''re a snob who can''t seem to hold his or her tounge then don''t. Write out exactly what you feel in Notepad or something, then read it over and turn it into constructive advice. Whether you''ve failed in the past and are upset about it, or your successes ended up not being the product you have in mind, or you''re an absolute game development pro who simply cannot abide what you perceive as stupidity - you have valuable experience and knowlede that can help new developer''s immensely. If you''re in the first two categories, JOIN A PROJECT or if nobody seems to be doing it right DO IT YOURSELF. Don''t sit here lamenting and bashing those who dare to dream while hoping ID recuriters come to this forum begging for your talents. Recognize that the VAST majority of these projects (including mine) are going to be independent projects offering little to no initial pay (if they''re not open-source/freeware to begin with). It''s nothing to flame someone for. Many of us are aspiring to be professional game developers and for most people it helps tremendously if you have done some sucessful independent work. People need to be supported to succeed, not slammed. If you''re in the last category then PLEASE help us all out. I for one would LOVE to learn from you and if you can post constructively the popularity of this forum will jump ten-fold. I apologize if I have broken any rules by posting this. -End Rant.